I STARTED A NEW ORG. AND NEED ADVISE?

[doc05]

Greetings all!

I am the Executive Director of a non-profit youth organization in Brooklyn, New York. I started this organization in high school as a means to provide positive activities for former gang members and "misfits". Much to my surprise, the organization grew by leaps and bounds, even attracting kids from other countries who joined us by correspondence. My organization (1City) provides free activities for youth in grades 4 to 12 and is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary and in those 20 years, we have served more than 2000 kids with little funding. The clubs that 1City provides includes basketball, cheerleading, fashion design, praise dance, flag football, double-dutch, toddler modeling, hip-hop dance, business, drama, choir and step. Our step team has even had the honor of performing at Madison Square Garden several times.

Some of the kids who aged out of the program approached me and asked if I could create something that they could be part of into their adult lives. I put the request back into their hands and told them that I would back any idea that they came up with. They chose to start a fraternity, because that structure closely resembles what my organization provided for them throughout their childhood.

The fraternity, Sigma Theta Rho, is in its beginning stages and was recently incorporated. We are only now starting to develop the organization's identity, but have already attracted 35 members! Once the idea was "put out there" in my community, we attracted parents, grandparents and even some of my volunteers who never had the opportunity to pledge during their college years. Our members range in age from 18 to 50 and we also have a "junior extension" of 11-17 year olds. Happily, all of the members are hard workers and despite the mix of ages and backgrounds, everyone works and plays well together. I'll bet you can imagine how entertaining our meetings are.....

I am posting this thread to say, "Thank You" to everyone who regularly posts and to every organization that is represented here. The information that I have gleaned so far has been invaluable and I hope that one day, our little organization will join your ranks and set excellent examples for the new organizations that will be formed as time goes on.

May you all be blessed beyond your biggest dreams!

Doc